


Luminous firefly lavender

by lotesse



Category: Firefly, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Buddhism, Chinese Character, Drabble Sequence, Families of Choice, Gen, M/M, Meditation, Racebending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-11
Updated: 2011-05-11
Packaged: 2017-10-19 07:12:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/198288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotesse/pseuds/lotesse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leia's mother had been a Browncoat commander, beautiful the way a weapon was. Leia didn't know how she'd died. Han Solo was no Browncoat. He didn't believe in dying for causes. And they told Luke not to think about the Browncoats' rebellion. “Won't change the harvest,” his Uncle Owen said, chopsticks punctuating. Luke'd found them both dead, with blood in their ears. </p><p>Fourteen drabbles from a 'verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Luminous firefly lavender

*

The Skywalker twins didn't look alike, and neither looked like Han: his straight nose and dark epicanthic eyes showed his han Chinese ancestry clear, while Luke and Leia's faces told mixed stories. Leia's hair was long and straight and black-shining, but her eyes were wide circles beside her snub nose. Luke had guǐlǎo's hair, pale as sunshine. Should be opposites, but they looked like there was something made them naturally, properly two.

Han'd been crazy about Luke since he'd taken him on. Didn't mean he was blind to Leia's charms – only that he hoped she was blind to Luke's.

*

Luke was meditating again. Sitting on the floor of the bridge, right up against the open black of the stars in his coveralls, grease everywhere, smudged cheekbones. Legs bent up lotus-fashion, eyes closed, face serene. He didn't so much as bat an eyelash when Han swung up the ladder. And he looked so gāi sǐ tranquil, like he didn't care about anyone or anything. Han hated it when Luke's face looked like that. Luke cared about everything and everyone, and Han needed him to keep on. He'd kinda got used to the kid caring about him, for a start.

*

Leia remembers: tea with her father, painting her face red and white in the morning to the small secret sounds of the house, a little girl learning her characters by copying proverbs. Trying to keep tranquil, to glitter on her father's arm and speak in a low diplomatic murmur.

She's told Luke some of it: losing her father, leaving his house. She didn't want to tell the Captain anything, and didn't know why. She'd fled ruined Alderaan for the emptiness of space and the struggle of life on the rim.

She hadn't expected to find family in the black as well.

*

Luke's sandy hair was getting long, falling over his ears in shaggy curls. She wound the ends around her fingertips. “Why don't you just cut it all off?” he said petulantly. “It's always in my eyes.”

“Let it grow a little longer,” Leia told him, laughing, “and you can coil and pin it the way I do.”

He snorted inelegantly. “So I can look even more like a yāzǐ than I already do?”

“Don't be horrid,” she said. “Male companions don't call themselves that. No one on the core would use such a derogatory term.”

“I didn't grow up on the core,” he said.

*

The spacer's shoulder tastes like salt and steel and grease, and Luke hungers to taste everything. For one thing, the guy's gorgeous: lean muscular body several centimeters taller than Luke's, hopelessly sexy scar marking his chin, almond-shaped brooding eyes. And he can apparently blow every pleasure-center in Luke's body – this is another universe from screwing around with Biggs or Fixer back at Anchorhead.

Luke looks up into the ship as the spacer fucks him, losing himself in the pleasurable hum and whir of her systems: turning, ritualistic. All except - “Hey, did you know your engine's got a bad motivator?” he pants.

*

“Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?” Luke asked, blue eyes wide and serious.

(Leia's mother had been a Browncoat commander and activist. She'd been beautiful the way a weapon was. Leia didn't know how she'd died.)

(Han Solo was no Browncoat. He didn't believe in dying for causes. Didn't mean he was going to tell that idealistic pair about his short service to the Alliance, though.)

(They told Luke not to think about the Browncoats' rebellion. “Won't change the harvest,” his Uncle Owen said, chopsticks punctuating. Luke'd found them both dead, with blood in their ears.)

“Just a little bit,” she answered.

*

Alliance troopers swarming all over everything, and they're sneaking out by way of an alley, when Luke goes ghost-white and distant. “Something wrong in the flow of qi,” he whispers, shaky, and Han's got to hold him up. “Voices – cried out – and were silenced -”

His blue eyes are huge, pupils expanded like spilled ink. Han presses a rough caress against his hairline, and Leia clutches her handgun convulsively. Luke looks so small in Han's hands.

She won't realize until later what the half-circled blue sun on the side of the glass-and-steel edifice behind them meant. By then it will be too late.

*

Leia's yelling for Luke to keep going, get back to the ship, but he turns, stands pale on blue-grey at the edge of the unextended bridge. There's nothing but a dead drop at his back, and she can hear the Purplebellies coming, but he just stands there and lets his eyes flutter closed. She wishes she could close hers – she doesn't want to see him die – but –

Luke holds up one bare delicate hand, palm turned out, and faster than her eyes can follow he blocks the plasma bolts, one two three. For the first time she feels afraid.

*

Han had a wide happy grin on his face, thumbs through his braces, looking pleased with himself. He sighed, weary and worn, but with the evident comfort of a job well done to light him up. “That'll keep us flying for a while,” he said.

“Yes,” Leia answered sardonically. “Little painted wobbly dolls – I had no idea smuggling was so glamorous, Captain. Will you get to wish the children a happy Life Day?”

Han pulled a face, offended, and Luke had to cover his face so they won't see him laughing. They'd bicker through dinner, though, if he could keep them going.

*

Leia sends coded messages out across the Cortex, threads of words connecting her to the delicate web of rebellion and revolt that still clings in odd corners of the 'verse. The Browncoats lost the war, but there're some will never stop fighting. She's not sure if she's one of them, but she can't help herself sending out tendril-messages.

Without any real political power, all the Senator's daughter has to go on is ephemeral rhetoric drifting through cyberspace, and a lengthening list of murdered worlds: Alderaan, Miranda. Remember, remember, remember. She wants to do more than bear witness, but can't think how.

*

Leia keeps one of the shuttles, and inside it's lovely and somewhat austere. When she goes there it feels like letting out a long sigh. Luke's bunk is a chaos of objects and mementoes, homespun tunics and a paper fan. He'd written out part of the Diamond Sutra in untidy calligraphic pen and ink on the back of an old printout, and pinned it up above the narrow bed for a meditation focus.

But he sleeps with Han most nights, curled up close in the bunk behind Han's shoulder, covered with bright batik that still smells like sunshine and planetfall.

*

“That went well,” Leia said dryly, needle moving in and out of Han's skin in a disconcerting manner.

“We got out,” he replied heavily, letting his eyes wander over to where Luke perched, vibrating with strung-out nervous energy. “Had no way of knowing that Lando was going to sell us out. 'Least we made it.”

“I'm endangering you,” Luke said, and Leia looked up at him sharply.

“Nonsense,” she said. “Crime and rebellion have their price, that's all.” But they all knew it was true, even as Leia tied off her thread and Luke pressed a kiss to the torn and mended flesh.

*

Han's heart is pounding like a gorram drum. So far their intel's been good, though. Leia's ice-princess mask got them through most of the doors, and he's blasted open the rest. When he sees Luke curled up small, electrodes fastened to his face but sleeping like a child, Han is both elated and terrified. If they weren't soon enough -

Luke opens his eyes, and Han sags with relief: the kid's still there. But - “Oh Luke,” Leia's saying, kneeling down beside him. “Your hand!” And, looking at the ghastly wound, Han realizes that they haven't made it out of this whole.

*

Leia makes jasmine tea in an iron pot with a silver bell, and Luke has the near-miraculous ability to survive cheerfully on protein and supplements for indefinite amounts of time, but Han Solo can actually cook, given the right ingredients. Give him eggs and tomatoes, or shou mian noodles and chives, or rosemary stems, and he could produce mouthwatering food.

“Pass the mustard greens?” Luke asks with his mouth full, and Han just grins and hands over the plate. Luke's hair is burnished gold in the soft candlelight, and Leia's eyes are glowing, and the _Falcon_ flies steady through the black.


End file.
